The appalling scenes of destruction in cities across the UK in recent days have left most of us reeling in shock, but perhaps haven’t left us surprised. Despite millions being invested in communities over recent years to reduce the gap between the affluent (and I use this term to describe those who can afford the odd luxury now and then) and those that are more deprived, it’s pretty clear we still have a problem which manifested itself so violently during the looting sprees in London, Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool.
There are many factors behind the destructive impulses of the groups of people rioting and we need to reflect carefully on what the reasons are rather than jump to knee jerk reactions. However it seems that they have no sense of ownership or stake in the communities where they live; evidently regeneration has done very little to diminish the disconnect felt by many. Regeneration cannot be constructed from above and the lesson we must learn is that communities need support to rebuild themselves from within.
The Big Lottery Fund’s £200m Big Local Trust programme is an initiative that has this value at its core. The scheme will provide funding to neighbourhoods in 150 areas across England with at least £1million available to each area over the next 10 years. Communities will be at the heart of the process – making decisions about local priorities and taking action themselves to realise lasting change.
Renaisi’s role is to recruit and manage Big Local facilitators who will be the face of the Trust in the individual neighbourhoods. Alongside this, our delivery of the Work Programme is now in full swing and we are delighted to be welcoming clients through the doors of our East and West London offices.
I can’t think of two initiatives which will better test the thinking that lies behind the Government’s Open Public Services White Paper which was launched a couple of weeks ago.
The paper reiterates the conviction that power should be decentralised to the lowest appropriate level. This thinking is at the heart of the principles of the Big Local Trust where neighbourhoods will decide what needs to be done to make their communities better places to live and people will be encouraged to work together to enable it to happen.
The Work Programme is also an early model for delivering the paper’s ethos. It is apparently designed to give people more choice about the services they use, encourage social enterprise to become involved and move us towards rewarding only the service providers who deliver. Time will tell whether payment by results encourages those working closest at the coal face or punishes the organisations whose balance sheets won’t allow them to be guinea pigs for new ideas.
Over the next 12 months, these two programmes will tell us a lot more about the realities of the White Paper and Renaisi is delighted to be at the forefront of delivery.
By Clive Tritton